Monday, May 30, 2016

The Real Woman’s Card: Empowerment

Revolutionary
Kurdish feminist leads assault on Raqqa. Kurdish and Iranian women may not
be truly empowered, that is, there are still many laws and traditions that
ensure their continued subjugation by the men in their society. But, thanks to
certain elements in their modern histories, both populations produce enough
“optics” to help Iranian and Kurdish leaders create the impression that they
are more modern and moderate, hence engage-able, than their Sunni, especially
Sunni Arab, counterparts, who are always represented in international media,
much to the consternation of their educated classes, by Gulf Arabs, or, to be
more specific, and fair, by the caricature image built around Gulf Arabs. This
gives Kurds and Iran a useful edge in their ongoing showdown with Arabs. And
this is important. This makes it easier for certain PR agencies on the
international scene to hide the fact that the “liberation” of Raqqa from IS
control might actually involve cleansing in of its majority Arab inhabitants as
well. Already plans for
administrating a liberated Raqqa as part of the Kurdish Federation established
by the PYD have been finalized. If the people of Raqqa had a choice, they would
most likely prefer to govern themselves independently of PYD and Assad
influences, until such time that talks on the future of Syria produced a more
durable alternative. But no one will listen to the people of Raqqa, no one that
is, until they are “sexed up” and taught how to approach the media.

But the real story that is being
missed by all sides is this: Real empowerment for women, and not just optics,
is the real game changer that all these countries and peoples really need.
While the struggle I this regard is underway and has been for a hundred years,
it might still take another hundred before we see its results.

Go ahead, patronize me!

About Ammar

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian-American author and pro-democracy activist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.

The Delirica

The Delirica is a companion blog to the Daily Digest of Global Delirium meant to highlight certain DDGD items by publishing them as separate posts. Also, the Delirica republishes articles by Ammar that appeared on other sites since 2016. Older articles can be found on Ammar's internet archive: Ammar.World